More August flights on time at Stewart

STEWART AIRPORT — After a subpar July, Stewart International Airport saw marked improvement in the number of passenger flights arriving and departing on time in August.

MICHAEL RANDALL

STEWART AIRPORT — After a subpar July, Stewart International Airport saw marked improvement in the number of passenger flights arriving and departing on time in August.

Arriving flights were on time 73.3 percent of the time in August, good for third place behind Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, which were at 76.1 percent and 75.1 percent, respectively, and just ahead of Westchester County Airport at 72.6 percent.

In July, Stewart was in fifth place, ahead of only Newark Liberty airport, with 65.6 percent of arrivals on time.

Neither Stewart nor any of its five competitors topped 80 percent in on-time arrivals or departures in July. For August, Stewart led all its competitors with 88.1 percent of its departures on time. Albany and LaGuardia airports were just under 80 percent in on-time departures.

Newark was last in both categories, with 68.1 percent of arrivals and 65.9 percent of departures on time.

By industry standards, a flight is on time if it takes off or lands less than 15 minutes past the scheduled time.

The on-time figures are included in the U.S. Department of Transportation's monthly Air Travel Consumer Report.

The DOT also tracks the various causes for late arrivals.

In Stewart's case, as usual, the majority of late arrivals were attributed to the carriers. The DOT said aircraft that arrived late because they also were late getting to the airport where the flight began were responsible for more than 18 hours of arrival delays at Stewart, while other miscellaneous air carrier delays were blamed for almost 20 more hours worth of delays.

Extreme weather — which includes hurricanes, tornados, blizzards and other conditions beyond the control of the airports and airlines — was responsible for almost two and a half hours of late arrivals.

Delays in the National Aviation System caused almost 10 more hours worth of delays, with volume being the chief culprit (more than four hours), followed by weather conditions the DOT says could be compensated for (almost three hours) and two cases where a runway was closed (more than two and a half hours).